MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Specialists from the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing have recorded two coronavirus cases of a new COVID XEC strain in two Russian regions.

This variant results in symptoms similar to FLiRT, an earlier Omicron subvariant, the press service of the sanitary watchdog told TASS.

"Two cases of COVID-19, the XEC subvariant, have been recorded in the Rostov Region and in Ufa," it said in a statement.